James Rhodes defends family and America against various foes in Ales Kot's new series.

James "Rhodey" Rhodes is a man devoted to family and country, and both of those are in danger in the new Iron Patriot comic book.

Rhodes, close pal to Tony Stark and wearer of the heavily weaponized War Machine, trades in his gun-metal garb for the ol' red, white and blue of a new armor suit and the orders that come with it in the solo series by writer Ales Kot (Secret Avengers, Zero) and artist Garry Brown. (Don Cheadle also was handed the Iron Patriot moniker and outfit in last year's Iron Man 3 movie.)

"The idea of making this story a political thriller of sorts always felt right," Kot says. "Politics and thrills feel almost inevitable when the main character's name is Iron Patriot."

While many of his fellow heroes make themselves available to the world at large, Rhodey's heart is at home — with his father, Terrence, and niece Lila — and he's been tapped to keep his missions limited to those on American soil, which doesn't sit well with everybody.

"James Rhodes is an African-American man with a military background who decides to wear an armor with a flag of the United States painted on it, and he also decides to rehaul what it means to be a patriot on a grand scale," Kot says. "That alone makes him completely iconic. That alone makes him different."

His patriotism will be tested, according to Kot, as well as his mettle as a superhero. On the first few pages of Iron Patriot No. 1 (out today), he has a very intimidating person in a helmet standing over him and asking Rhodey if he's a "true patriot."

Whoever is inside that armor is "a mirror to the beliefs of James Rhodes, a mirror to Iron Patriot," Kot says. "And the roots of it go back to earlier days and earlier conflicts the United States had a hand in."

However, don't assume that this person is the main villain of the first "Unbreakable" arc, the writer adds. "I don't believe in protagonists and antagonists. I believe in people who do right things and wrong things, and the two can merge, change and so on — nothing is static."

Rhodey's own tendency to do the right thing is one of the aspects Kot most wants to explore with the series.

"That's what he's aiming for, always," he says. "What happens when you overdo that? What happens when you become lost in 'doing the right thing'? What happens when your family suffers in the process? And how do you even go about figuring out what the right thing is?"

Iron Man may stop by the end of the first Iron Patriot story line, yet it's mainly going to be focused on the main character, that aforementioned armored person and Rhodey's family, who become very integral to the narrative, according to Kot.

He'd like to see the scene-stealing Lila became a major part of the Marvel Universe, but she and her grandpa were mainly created because Kot thought there needed to be more complex African-American characters in the mix overall.

"I am a privileged white male and I am very aware of my privilege. I am not interested in living in a world where old white men make all decisions," Kot says. "This is one of my contributions toward the kind of fiction that reflects the world I actually live in and not some make-believe, white-people-only land."

Kot always aims to create a story with personal resonance, and after some rewriting at various points, he found a strong connection with some of the later issues in his first arc.

One of the best pieces of advice he received during that time: "Write what's alive in you."

"I was going through some very deep processing in regards to my family, and that in turn connected to how I processed the rewrite of the story," Kot says. "In sync with that, my ideas and feelings on privacy and openness also kicked in.

"All of these ideas, thoughts and feelings found some sense of processing and release through Rhodey, through other characters, and through the narrative."